Inside Public Participation

IAP2 is a federation of regional IAP2 organizations such as IAP2 USA and IAP2 Canada. Kylie Cochrane is the Chair of the overarching federation. Recently, while at the IAP2 North America Conference in Victoria, she talked with Joseph Thornley about IAP2, its changing structure, major issues in the P2 practice and a look into the future. The post Inside P2 013: An Interview with Kylie Cochrane, Chair of the International Association for Public Participation [https://www.firpodcastnetwork.com/inside-p2-013-an-interview-with-kylie-cochrane-chair-of-the-international-association-for-public-participation/] appeared first on FIR Podcast Network [https://www.firpodcastnetwork.com].

Public engagement is a fast growing practice that is in many ways adjacent to marketing and communications. On the last afternoon of the North American Conference of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), Joseph Thornley sat down for an interview with outgoing IAP2 Canada President Bruce Gilbert. Topics covered include: * The growth of IAP2 Canada’s membership at a time that many organizations are seeing declining growth; * The reasons that the growth in IAP2 Canada’s membership has been greatest in Western Canada while the east has lagged – and what can be done to promote growth in the east; * The first Canadian skill symposium as a harbinger of an increasing emphasis at the region level to skills and expertise transference; * The importance of IAP2 Canada providing a training program that is provided in both English and French; * The importance of the new certification program and the challenge of promoting it to practitioners and employers; * And his next challenge? Bruce is staying active in IAP2 as Canada’s rep on the IAP2 Federation, where he will continue to participate in the change exercise. And beyond that, as a former senior official in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Bruce wants to reach out other senior government officials to prozelityze the merits and benefits of senior participation. The post IAP2 Canada President Bruce Gilbert on the public participation practice [https://www.firpodcastnetwork.com/iap2-canada-president-bruce-gilbert-on-the-public-participation-practice/] appeared first on FIR Podcast Network [https://www.firpodcastnetwork.com].

EngagePhase Weekly is the only newsletter that covers the public participation industry in North America and around the world.  And today, EngagePhase Editor-in-Chief Tim Bonneman joins Joseph Thornley to talk about what it took to get EngagePhase going, how he covers the industry and what to expect from EngagePhase in the future. The post Covering the Public Participation Industry with Tim Bonnemann [https://www.firpodcastnetwork.com/covering-the-public-participation-industry-with-tim-bonnemann/] appeared first on FIR Podcast Network [https://www.firpodcastnetwork.com].

Canada’s National Capital Region is getting its own chapter of the International Association for Public Participation. And this week’s Inside P2 guest host, Peter Wilton, joins Joseph Thornley to talk about what’s in store for members of the new chapter. The post Inside P2: Canada’s National Capital Region gets its own IAP2 chapter [https://www.firpodcastnetwork.com/inside-p2-canadas-national-capital-region-gets-its-own-iap2-chapter/] appeared first on FIR Podcast Network [https://www.firpodcastnetwork.com].

INTEGRATING REAL WORLD FACILITATION WITH ONLINE ENGAGEMENT Rebecca Sutherns [https://twitter.com/RebeccaSutherns], CEO of Sage Solutions [https://sage-solutions.org/], co-hosts this week’s podcast. Rebecca shares her insights into the value of facilitated conversations with stakeholder groups and the challenge of facilitation in an era in which people are more focused on the screens of their mobile devices than to the people who may be sitting only feet away. She talks about integrating the richness and value of in-person experiences with online experiences that will reach larger numbers of people. This presents not only the challenge of asking questions to obtain useful responses across media, but also the challenge of interpreting data sets that will vary in both number and richness of data. LET’S TALK IAP2 Last September at the IAP2 North American conference in Denver, IAP2 [https://www.iap2.org/]kicked off an examination of its organization and business model. This has been underway at an elite level, driven by a “Change Committee” drawn from North America, Australasia, Indonesia, Southern Africa and Latin America. This week, IAP2 sent an email to members like us inviting us to provide our input on a set of strategic directions that were established by the Change Committee. The intent is to gather member input via the Let’s Talk IAP2 [https://www.letstalkiap2.org/] website for the next few weeks and then for a consensus decision from national and regional affiliate boards at IAP2 in Victoria. Both Rebecca and I are looking forward to providing our input. However, for me, the fact that IAP2 is consulting members so late in the process, and only consulting members, as opposed to the groups that it is “involving”, such as trainers, or empowering (both of those terms are defined in the IAP2 spectrum) elevates my puzzlement at the top-focused nature of IAP2. It is the only membership-based organization that I have participated in that treats members as peripheral to decision-making. That’s ironic, when you think about the mission and mandate embodied in the organization’s name – the International Association for Public Participation. IAP2 is important to me — I hope they get it right. Let’s Talk IAP2 launched August 8 and runs to August 27. Find out more information at Let’s Talk IAP2 [https://www.letstalkiap2.org/]. SIDEWALK GOES OFF THE RAILS? Sidewalk Labs is planning to build a model smart community in Toronto. But their approach to community relations and public participation has undermined trust [https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2018/08/02/google-affiliates-grand-ambition-runs-into-waterfront-torontos-reality.html] and raised opposition [https://business.financialpost.com/technology/sidewalk-toronto-scrambles-to-prepare-for-public-meeting-as-criticism-mounts] in the community. The post Nothing About Us Without Us is For Us – Inside P2 009 [https://www.firpodcastnetwork.com/nothing-about-us-without-us-is-for-us-inside-p2-009/] appeared first on FIR Podcast Network [https://www.firpodcastnetwork.com].